A radiation-emitting component of the type mentioned is illustrated diagrammatically in FIG. 7 and described for example in EP 0 400 176 A1. The component has a housing base body 31 with a mounting area 32, in which a leadframe 33 is embedded. Parts of the leadframe 33 are formed as connection strips which project from the housing base body 31 and, as they proceed further, are bent such that their connection areas 34 lie in one plane with the mounting area 32, which defines the mounting plane of the component. The bends 35 in the connection strips impart certain elastic properties to the connection strips, so that, on the one hand, a stable, tilting-free bearing of the component, for example on a printed circuit board, is ensured and, on the other hand, mechanical stresses which may arise in particular when the component is soldered in are elastically absorbed. Since changes in temperature are generally unavoidable when the component is soldered in and also during operation or avoiding them at least requires a high outlay, a certain elasticity of the component, in particular a flexibility of the connection strips, cannot be dispensed with.
Furthermore, the connection strips have to be formed such that components which are packed as bulk material do not interlock in one another. Finally, a sufficiently stable fixing of the component has to be ensured by the connection strips.
However, the known bent embodiment of the connection strips increases the space requirement for such a component both vertically and horizontally. In the horizontal direction, a certain minimum distance between the connection areas 34 and the housing base body 31 is prescribed by the stretched S-shaped bends 35. Reducing said minimum distance would require a higher degree of bending of the leadframe 33 and thus increase the risk of components interlocking in one another. Moreover, the bend 35 of the leadframe 33 toward the mounting area 32 of the component increases the volume taken up by the component and defines the minimum height of the component in its mounted state.
The space requirement is to be kept as small as possible in the case of very small structural forms which, for example, are intended to enable a high packing density and/or planar design and/or a mounting in round conductor track holes, that is to say holes.